What would it look like to live in the now? The question itself might sound a little tired or clichéd, but the truth is that to live in the now is to live the freedom of the children of God. Nearly all the saints we hold up as models of Christian living appear to us as fearless in the face of the moments of difficulty they encounter. I think of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan friar who gave up his life in a Nazi concentration camp to spare the life of a young father. I think of Blessed Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador who spoke out against the violence and injustice of his society and was assassinated for speaking the truth of the Gospel, which unsettled those who sought only to increase their power. I think of St. Clare of Assisi, the cofounder of the Franciscan family who stood up to the pope in order to protect the way of life that she and St. Francis had founded on evangelical poverty. These and so many others lived their lives, day by day, in the now that exists in the eschatological tension of “already, not yet.”
God calls us to snap out of our anxieties and fears in order to start living what we’ve been called to in baptism: Gospel life.
—from the book God Is Not Fair (And Other Reasons for Gratitude)
by Daniel P. Horan
